


Fallout

by whelvenwings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, M/M, Mutual Pining, Skydiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 04:44:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21350458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whelvenwings/pseuds/whelvenwings
Summary: Dean might have slightly underplayed how much he hates planes, and that might just have come back to bite him in the ass. He's just been asked to fly up to a height of thousands of feet, for moral support in the plane before Castiel does a skydive for charity. It's the nightmare scenario - but it might just give Dean the push he needs to finally tell his friend Castiel something he's been meaning to tell him for a very, very long time.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 22
Kudos: 313





	Fallout

This was actually happening.

Dean was really, truly, and in actual fact inside a plane. A plane that was  _ not  _ on the ground. A plane that was very much in the air. Engine roaring. Pilot in control. Clouds moving serenely past the window.

He couldn’t breathe, obviously. But he was doing his best to keep that to himself. He was here for a reason, a specific and good reason - obviously. Nothing less that the best and most specific of reasons could have got him on board. He had to focus on that reason. 

On that person, actually. Who was sitting opposite him.

Castiel looked nervous. In all their four years of friendship, Dean had never seen his jaw clenched so tight. Even still, the giveaway was a small one, and Dean thought that to anyone who’d never met him, Castiel would probably have looked entirely cool with the fact that in less than a minute, he was going to be jumping out of this plane.

Dean was not remotely cool. Dean had gone through the five stages of grief on the ascent, and was now hovering somewhere in the zone of numb acceptance. He leaned forwards, towards Castiel.

“Remind me why you’re doing this again,” Dean said to him, speaking loudly so that he could be heard over the sound of the plane’s engines. Castiel smiled.

“To raise a lot of money for a good cause,” he said.

“And remind me why I’m here?”

“You said if I was going to throw away my life on something this stupid, you were at least going to wave me goodbye before I did it,” Castiel said.

That was right. Dean clearly remembered thinking that if he was going to lose Castiel to a parachuting accident, Dean was going to be with him until the last possible moment. And maybe, at that last possible moment, he’d have the guts to say to Castiel… well. To say goodbye to him, anyway.

“Also,” Castiel said, “I asked if you’d come.”

And there it was. Dean could’ve let go of the other stuff - maybe - but Castiel had asked him. The thing was, Dean might have decided to undersell how much he hated planes, over the course of the time they’d known each other - there was no need to make Cas think he was a baby - but it had really come back to bite him in the ass. Castiel would never have asked if he’d known that for Dean, being on a plane was like swallowing a pill labelled  _ panic and feel like you’re dying.  _ But Castiel hadn’t known, and he had asked. And now here Dean was.

On a goddamn plane.

“You’re fine,” Castiel said, apparently catching the expression on Dean’s face. “You’re wearing a parachute. Nothing’s going to go wrong.”

“I’m not jumping,” Dean said hastily. The part of him that wasn’t freaking out rolled its eyes. Obviously he wasn’t jumping, and Castiel knew that - but the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Some primal part of him apparently needed it to be  _ entirely  _ clear that he was absolutely not going to be dropping out of this plane.

“I know. It just makes me feel better than you’re wearing one, just in case,” Castiel said. “And you know how to use it, right? Because I can show you again…”

“You showed me three times already. Worry about yourself,” Dean grunted. Normally, he’d have teased Castiel about fussing over him, but worry was shaving away his sense of humour.

“I’ve done this lots of times,” Castiel said. “Before we met, I used to do it monthly. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m just worried about making rent if you, you know, go splat,” Dean said. “You don’t have life insurance and a will made out to me, do you?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Any rich family members I could sponge off?”

“Lots. But you never liked my aunts and uncles.”

“Some of them are okay,” Dean said. “Naomi creeps me out.”

“She’s fine,” Castiel said.

“She’s dead behind the eyes,” Dean said. It was helping to talk. Things felt normal when they talked. He could forget where he was, and what was about to happen.

“Concussed, at most,” Castiel said, his mouth twitching.

At the front of the plane, the pilot turned around. He called something that Dean couldn’t hear, but apparently made sense to Castiel, who began to pull on straps and tug at his jumpsuit and tap on the pair of goggles on the top of his head to make sure they were still there.

Dean was struck by a sudden sense of urgency.

“Cas?” he said. 

Castiel didn’t hear him.

“Cas?”

This time, Castiel turned to look, eyes expectant.

“You know how we’ve been friends for, you know, four years now…”

“I’m going to be  _ fine,  _ Dean.”

“I know, I know.” Dean chewed his lip as Castiel went back to his straps. “Just… don’t… I mean, we’ve really…”

He stumbled to a stop.

Castiel watched him, still adjusting one of the straps on his jumpsuit. The expression on his face was slightly impatient.

Dean’s mouth tried to form words, and failed. He couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say any of it. 

Couldn’t say what it had meant to him to meet Castiel during the worst year of his life, when he’d just lost both his parents. 

Couldn’t say how much their friendship had kept him going, through the worst of times. 

Couldn’t say how much he looked forward to their quiet movie nights. Their weird, intense, deep discussions. Castiel was the first person Dean had met in adulthood who actually thought a dumbass mechanic might have something interesting to say, and talked to him about real shit, important shit. And then there were the times they both lost it completely over something only they would find funny, Dean laughing out loud and Castiel’s shoulders shaking as he covered his eyes with his hand. 

Dean couldn’t say how much he thought about Castiel, how often he noticed things, how much he felt. It was so much. It was so goddamn much, and he’d never breathed a word. Obviously. Never told a single soul. He wouldn’t know how to begin to twist even a single sentence together.

He still couldn’t. Even now, when he could be about to lose Castiel forever - yeah, sure, Castiel would roll his eyes at that, but the fact remained that Castiel was about to jump out of a very high plane and head downward at high speed towards some very hard ground - even now, he couldn’t force the words out. What if Castiel didn’t want to hear them? What if he was horrified? What if the last memory Dean had of Castiel was of being rejected, with Castiel hating him for keeping his feelings a secret for so long, their trust broken?

And even if that wasn’t his last memory - what if Castiel landed completely okay, and then Dean had to explain? 

Either way, he was going to be dealing with some fallout.

Dean couldn’t do it. He couldn’t. 

He was going to sit quietly and support his friend on his stupid ridiculous charity jump, and then he was going to go home with Castiel afterwards and things were going to go back to how they’d been for years, now. Just the normal things: cooking together, watching TV together, hiding his smile when he watched Castiel concentrating or talking about something he was passionate about, trying not to ever look too long or feel too much and failing, doing laundry together, taking out the trash. Just the usual.

One day, Castiel was going to meet someone he actually liked, and he was going to tell that person that he liked them, and they were obviously going to like him back because who wouldn’t, and when he heard about it for the first time Dean was going to have to politely excuse himself so that he could go into the woods somewhere and yell and yell and maybe never come back. Maybe just become that guy who lives in the woods and yells a lot. It was going to hurt like - like nothing Dean had ever felt before. He knew it in the same way he knew, by looking at a knife, that the pointy end shouldn’t go in him. The fun part was, he wasn’t the one holding the knife. That was Castiel.

And Castiel  _ would  _ find someone. Dean knew that Castiel hoped he’d be in a relationship with someone he loved one day. They’d talked about it. And when Castiel found what he wanted, he wouldn’t be too afraid to take it, and hold it, when he’d found it. Because Castiel wasn’t afraid, not like Dean. Castiel jumped out of planes.

“Stop,” Castiel said, jerking Dean back to the present. “I can tell you’re thinking about how I’m about to - how did you so colourfully put it? ‘Go splat’?”

Dean had been more focused on the way he himself was going to go splat, emotionally speaking, one day. But he held up his hands and said,

“Guilty as charged. Like I said. I just don’t want to lose your half of the rent money, dude.”

“I’m sure you’d find another roommate.”

There was something in the way Castiel said it that made Dean frown.

“Nah,” he said.

Castiel looked up at him.

“What?” he asked.

“If you - you know - I wouldn’t find a new roommate. I’d move out.”

“Leave our place?” Castiel looked taken aback. “But… you spent so long decorating it. You’d lose your accent walls. And your faucets. You love your faucets.”

Dean took a moment to curse the fact that Castiel knew how much he cared about the taps in his home, but not the person he shared it with. How had this happened. Who  _ was  _ he.

“I’d sell it,” Dean said solidly.

“It’s so perfectly placed for your work…”

“I’d sell it, Cas! It doesn’t even matter, anyway. Nothing bad is gonna happen.”

Castiel heard the note of finality in Dean’s tone and let it go. Even still, Dean could see thoughts whirring in Castiel’s mind, in just the way Dean usually tried to prevent. If Castiel was going to find out that Dean had feelings for him, Dean wanted it to be on purpose, not by accident: not because Dean said slightly too much and Castiel figured it out, but because Dean finally had the guts to say something. Anything else felt like a cop-out.

The plane was starting to rattle and jerk a little. Dean closed his eyes, whole body tensing up. The cabin was a sparse one, with this plane being used mostly just to ferry people up a few thousand feet so that they could throw themselves out of it, so far as Dean knew. Room to stand up and walk a little way, seats along the sides, handles on the ceiling to grip onto. There were no in-flight snacks or home comforts to make up for the fact that he was trapped in a prison at lethal altitude.

When he opened his eyes again, Castiel was standing up and talking to the pilot. Dean saw him nod, and then he went over to the door, which was on one side of the cabin, the side opposite where Dean was sitting. Dean swallowed hard. If he was going to do it, it had to be now.

He opened his mouth, and then closed it.

Castiel had his hand on the door.

Dean opened his mouth again, and said,

“Cas -”

He said it just as Castiel opened the door, and the sudden rush of air stole the sound. Castiel didn’t turn around. Dean watched him framed there in the doorway of the plane, hair buffeted by the wind.

Fuck.

Castiel looked ready to jump. He was bracing his hands on either side of the door. He had his goggles pulled down. It seemed like he was about to go. Was he even going to look back at Dean? With the clumsiness of panic, Dean fumbled with the straps that held him in his seat. He had to get over to Castiel, had to tell him - something, at least. Just something. He unclipped himself.

Dean stood up. He felt more steady on his feet than he’d expected. He just had to focus on Castiel, and not think about the door of the plane being wide open, or the fact that he was thousands of feet above the ground, or how easily he could just slip and fall out -

Dean saw Castiel shift, turning his head to look back over his shoulder towards Dean - and then Castiel saw Dean standing up, and his expression melted into concern faster than Dean had ever seen.

“What are you  _ doing?” _ he called, over the roar of the plane.

“I’m coming to - to say -”

“Sit down! It’s not safe!”

“Cas, I’ve gotta tell you -”

“Sit down!”

From up front, Dean thought he could hear the pilot yelling something. Dean gritted his teeth.

“Cas,” he said, and Castiel turned away from the door. He grabbed onto one of the handles hanging from the plane cabin’s ceiling, and looked at Dean. Sharply, he pulled up his goggles, so they rested on top of his head again.

“What?” he demanded. 

Dean reached for words that weren’t there. 

Castiel reached for Dean’s hand, and Dean’s heart leapt for a second - but then Castiel just grabbed him by the wrist and lifted his hand to hook into another one of the ceiling handles. Dean hung onto it.

And Castiel looked at Dean, eyes searching his face, trying to understand. At first, he looked as though a part of him was finding this slightly funny, even though his worry - but then he seemed to pick up on Dean’s indecision, his urgency, and the little smile around his eyes faded.

It was time to say something. Now was the moment. There had been at least three  _ now was the moment  _ moments, and he’d missed all of them so far, so this  _ really  _ had to be the moment. But Dean didn’t know what to do, what to say. He could only look at Castiel, and look at him, and look at him.

He saw Castiel. His friend. His closest friend. His closest, bravest, most stubborn asshole friend. About to make a jump. He saw him, and he didn’t know what to say to him.

Dean’s gaze traced over Castiel’s face.

The plane shuddered, and Dean felt a wave of panic flood him. With his free hand, he grabbed onto Castiel’s shoulder to steady himself. The two of them swayed closer together.

Dean breathed in sharply. 

He couldn’t stop looking into Castiel’s eyes. Couldn’t figure out what to say. They were closer than they’d ever been, closer than Dean ever let them be around their home. He always kept such careful distances and saved touch for his imagination. But now here they were, Dean’s hand already on Castiel’s shoulder, in each other’s space.

Just where Dean wanted to be. And couldn’t be. He couldn’t be here, couldn’t do this. He was going to lose Castiel. He was going to lose him, actually lose him, like this. It wasn’t a game, it wasn’t fake or pretend - it was real life, and in real life, you lost people unless you did everything right. The right thing to do was to move his hand and go back and sit down. He should move his hand. 

He should move his hand.

He should move his hand.

He wasn’t moving his hand.

Castiel’s expression was changing, his eyes on Dean’s more intense. There was a question there, an understanding that something was happening and a tilt to his head that asked what Dean was going to do about it, what he wanted. Dean didn’t know how to answer. Didn’t know how to move, even. He was locked in place - one hand on Castiel’s shoulder, not taking it away, not giving anything more. Just enough to be close but not as close as he wanted, needed.

The moment see-sawed. Dean knew he could pull back, let go, step away, go sit down. 

Or, Dean knew, he could lean forward. Not quickly, but enough - enough that Castiel would know what Dean wanted, and then he could choose whether to give it or not. And obviously he would choose not to. Because if someone as brave as Castiel had wanted to be with Dean, Dean would already know about it. So doing that would be ridiculous, stupid,  _ stupid,  _ as stupid as jumping out of a plane.

Dean didn’t make jumps. He didn’t do heights. He didn’t do danger. He did the right thing, the silent thing, the not-really-doing-or-saying-anything thing. And he was careful, he was careful, he was always so careful never to show any of it, not a word of it, not a whisper, not a glance.

Even still, though, their plane was up high. The air currents swirled. The pilot was yelling something again, not paying enough attention to the plane itself. Castiel, with his own mind and choices and story, was opposite him. Dean could do everything completely perfectly, be completely silent and do nothing to give Castiel a reason to leave - and even still, there were a hundred ways, a thousand ways that he could lose Castiel just in this exact moment.

Maybe that was scary. Maybe that was terrible. But there was no way off the plane, they were here. This was it. This was what they had. 

Dean wanted to hide. He wanted go on with it as he had been. He could go on and on being tired, and tired, and right, and silent.

But somewhere deeper inside him, there was a pull. More than a want, a need. A need to let go. Let go of right. Try something else. Try  _ being _ something else. Honest? Open? 

Real?

Real - real would be wrong sometimes. Stupid. Urgent. Honest. Real would be letting himself want something, letting himself… show that he wanted it.

He wanted Castiel to know. In his bones, he felt it. Hot and electric, the push, the need. Dean wanted Castiel to  _ know. _

In the cabin of the plane, high above the ground, mind freefalling and breath lost, Dean made his jump.

Deliberately, he lifted his chin a little, and leaned in towards Castiel, and glanced down at his lips and then back up to his eyes.

Castiel’s eyes widened.

“Dean…” he said.

Dean swallowed.

He tightened his grip on Castiel’s shoulder. All he could see as the plane moved under him was Castiel’s face, the steadiness of his eyes. And then, he felt the lightest of touches on his cheek. 

Castiel’s hand, the backs of his fingers, brushed Dean’s skin. It was so fragile, so tentative. Dean closed his eyes into it, just for a half-second, before he could stop himself. When he looked back to Castiel, he saw a question in his expression. More than that. He saw a hope.

“There was something I wanted to tell you,” Castiel called to him. The wind through the plane’s cabin was so loud that he had to raise his voice even though they were so close. “Before I jumped.”

“There was?”

“Dean, I…”

They stared at each other. Just looked, and looked. Dean saw Castiel’s mouth struggling for words, half-shaping things and then abandoning them.

“Cas?” he said.

“Dean… I wanted to tell you…”

Dean raised his chin just a fraction higher.

Castiel stopped reaching for words. His eyes dropped to Dean’s lips.

“This,” he said, and then he leaned forwards, and kissed Dean.

If he’d meant the kiss to be gentle, he hadn’t reckoned on Dean meeting him in the middle, surging forwards to catch his lips. They kissed hard, not breathing and not moving and not caring, just doing this - finally,  _ finally  _ doing this, after so long around each other not knowing if they should or if they could. The wind raced around the cabin, tugging at them, but they paid it no attention. It was Dean, and it was Castiel, at a height of thousands of feet, wrapped into each other.

Castiel pulled back.

“That,” he said.

And then he turned, pulled down his goggles - he took a few quick steps, and he jumped.

Dean stood utterly still. Wind-ruffled, kiss-shaken, mouth ever so slightly open, dazed.

“Uh-huh,” he said, to no one. “Right.”

\---

Dean marched across the field at a pace that was militaristic. The long grass where Castiel had landed reached up to Dean’s hips, but he wasn’t waiting for Castiel to make his own way out of it; he was coming to meet him. Somewhere behind him, he knew there were people following, ready to help with the parachute. Dean paid them no attention.

He could still feel the kiss burning on his lips.

Last-minute rush of adrenaline? A pity-kiss, because he’d known what Dean had wanted, and had decided to give it to him?

Or… something real?

Dean couldn’t even think it. All he could do was walk. He could stride across this field with its swaying tall green grass, single-minded. In the distance, he could see a figure walking towards him out of the sun. The shape of a person he knew. Dean headed towards him, squinting against the light.

The trees at the edge of the field rustled. Somewhere in the grass, there was the chirping of crickets. Dean breathed. The air was warm and smelled fresh - a little sharp with sap, a little sweet with the yellow ripening of a few stray ears of crop.

Dean walked. The figure ahead of him drew nearer. Not a silhouette, now, not a vague shadow. A person, a face. Blue eyes. Solemn expression.

Castiel.

They kept going until they were close to each other. It was Castiel who came to a halt first, with a few feet between them.

Dean would have been happy to walk into another kiss, another touch, but he stopped. Let Castiel take the lead. It might not have been real, he reminded himself. It might not have been real.

They stood quietly for a few seconds. Dean took a breath and let it go. Castiel wasn’t looking at him. He was twisting a piece of grass around his finger.

“Cas -”

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said.

Dean paused.

“Huh?”

“I’m sorry. I - I wanted to tell you - before I jumped - but I didn’t know how, and then…” Castiel swallowed visibly. “We can act as though it never happened. But I understand, if you don’t want to be around me right now. I can go.”

“What?”

Castiel kept twisting and twisting that grass.

“I can go,” he said.

“You want to?”

Now, Castiel looked at him.

“Don’t  _ you  _ want me to?”

“I… I want…”

Dean felt his shoulders tensing. He wanted to be back in the goddamn plane, turbulence pushing them close, wind too loud to really talk. Down here, in the quiet, there was nothing to make them closer than they showed they wanted to be.

The grass wavered and moved around them.

Dean closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was the one to look down, at the swaying fronds.

“I want you to be here,” he said. Low, deep. Rough. Trying, as always, to hide how careful it all felt inside, how delicate.

“Here… in this field?”

Dean wanted to just fall into the grass, face-first. Give up. But he gritted his teeth.

“Here, where… I… am,” he managed.

Castiel was quiet. Dean chanced a glance up at his face.

“You want to be…” Castiel began, and then broke off.

“Together,” Dean finished, his tone almost -  _ almost  _ \- making it a question. But not quite. Because there was no question, not really. That was what he wanted. What he’d wanted for so, so long.

“Even though I…” Castiel gestured loosely upward, to the sky.

“It wasn’t - I didn’t - it was - fine,” Dean said.

Fine? Seriously? He was going to call the first kiss he’d ever shared with Castiel,  _ fine?  _ Something in him rebelled.

“No,” he said, “it was - it was - good. It was what I - god. It was what I wanted, Cas.”

When he looked at Castiel now, he couldn’t tell which was brighter. The look on Castiel’s face, or the sun behind him.

“You wanted…”

“Yeah. But you… you too?”

“Yes, Dean. Of course.” Castiel looked as though a touch of puzzlement was trying to show, but it was being utterly eclipsed by his happiness. “You didn’t know? I thought you’d known for years…”

“Wait. You’ve wanted this for years?” Dean said, and it came out a croak. “You too?”

“Dean,” Castiel said. “It’s always been you.”

Dean and Castiel stared at each other.

“We need to learn how to talk,” Dean said.

Castiel pressed his lips together, holding back laughter.

“Jesus. We really… jesus, Cas.”

Now, Castiel stepped closer to him. Now, they moved into each other’s space again, came closer. Dean had always imagined that if this ever happened - if he ever actually got the chance to step closer to Castiel, knowing that he wanted this, knowing they both wanted the same thing - he’d always imagined that he’d feel dizzy, heady, mind floating over his own body, disbelieving.

It wasn’t like that. As he moved, he felt it all. The grass against his fingertips, the way the breeze caught at his clothes. He felt clear-eyed, awake. He felt his breath in his lungs, his heartbeat - thudding hard, desperately hard, but steady.

And when Castiel touched the tips of his fingers to Dean’s cheek, he felt it shake him. Felt his legs want to go from under him. He was big and clumsy under the gentleness of the touch. But when he met Castiel’s eyes, he hoped Castiel saw in them what he felt inside: something delicate and intricate. Strong, but so carefully felt, over so many years.

Dean leaned forward, and pressed his forehead to Castiel’s. They moved slowly, now. They had time. There was no sound around them but the hushing grass. If the people who’d followed Dean for the parachute were nearby, they were leaving the pair of them well alone.

Achingly slowly, Dean moved. 

Eyes closed, going by feel, chasing the warmth of Castiel’s breath, Dean kissed him.

There was no thought. He was all feeling. He was the lips on Castiel’s lips, he was the hand on Castiel’s shoulder and the hand on his back, he was feet planted on the ground. He was hot under the sun’s light and under the care in Castiel’s touch. He was awake, he was real.

It was better than he could have possibly imagined.

**Author's Note:**

> The pilot in the plane was definitely yelling, "Hey, when you said you'd done this before hundreds of times and you don't need anyone else up here for safety reasons and I agreed because your blue eyes and deep voice are very soothing and authoritative, you didn't mention that you were gonna be just standing there in the middle of the cabin swinging around on those handles and kissing handsome men, please either sit down or jump, I don't need this stress."


End file.
